Republican regrets

Last night I watched the video of President Obama's meeting with the House Republican caucus in Baltimore.. It was a question-and-answer session, though some of the questions sounded more like small speeches.

What a delight to see Obama get good and tough with those folks, especially when he was blamed for the disastrous baggage he inherited from George W. Bush. All in all, I would say the president took his questioners to the cleaners. Once again he showed an extremely keen intelligence and grasp of facts, and he kept his cool in the face of a lot of arrogant cynicism.

When the camera turned to the audience, you could see grimness all over the place. I'd say two of the grimmest faces were on stage; they belonged to leaders John Boehner and Eric Cantor. No surprise there.

Commentators are saying that the Republicans thoroughly regret that they allowed this interchange to be televised. I don't doubt it one bit.

The Roberts & Company disaster

While countless Americans continued to reach out in a thousand ways to help the millions of disaster victims in Haiti, a profoundly ugly decision was made in Washington. Yesterday the Supreme Court majority accelerated our country's ongoing falling apart at the seams in an enormous way.

The Court majority that eased George W. Bush into office has now produced a rotten decision that reminds one of the infamous Dred Scott ruling. (That Supreme Court decision--7 to 2, in 1857- ruled that blacks were not protected by the Constitution, could not be citizens and were private property. It's greatest opponent was Abraham Lincoln.)

Yesterday Chief Justice John Roberts and his four comrades on the Court gave free rein to corporations to spend all the mountains of money they want in order to put their own people in power--from congressional seats to city councils. Roberts and Company claim such unfettered corporate spending is "free speech."

What we now clearly have is an unadulterated homeland disaster.

The sixtieth vote

Incredible. The Senate seat held by Ted Kennedy for 47 years has been taken by Scott Brown, a climate change skeptic and advocate of torture (specifically waterboarding.) Listen to the barrage of clinks as bankers, insurance company execs and big pharma operatives raise their glasses and toast the disappearance of Senate vote #60.

Apparently this upset was brought about by independents who are fed up with everything from the high unemployment numbers to the bank bailouts. Maybe this outcome should not have been such a surprise.

When Brown's win was confirmed, the pending (and very wimpy) health care legislation was instantly pronounced dead. New approaches immediately began to pour out. The House could just accept the Senate version as is before Brown's arrival (but Obama and others have already shot that one down.) Medicare eligibility could be expanded. Health care reform could be done piecemeal .

This could all be so very uncomplicated: Just make Medicare universal.

Haiti video

I hope that every one of you reading this who has not seen Sunday's "60 Minutes" piece on Haiti will copy the following link into your browser and watch it:

http://tinyurl.com/y8vj3a6

Haiti

Who could have imagined last night that deaths from the Haiti earthquake might exceed 100,000. I have been watching video footage on MSNBC and it beyond heartbreaking. Bodies visible everywhere, and unknown numbers are buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings

President Obama moved quickly; this is nothing like Katrina. Rescue teams are already there and aid is on its way via air and sea. The US now has air control set up at the Port Au Prince airport, but the country has only two paved airports. The other one is way to the north, hours from the capital.

Aid from other countries is arriving as well, and in Washington Democrats and Republicans are working together. But in the midst of universal compassion and solidarity, two ugly marks stain the picture.

"Christian" preacher Pat Robertson said that God has "cursed" Haiti for selling its soul to the devil in exchange for driving out the French.

Limbaugh said that President Obama was happy about the earthquake and that his administration will "use this to burnish their, shall we say, credibility with the black community, in the...the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made to order for them."

Today, the two most disgusting people in America.

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A friend in Chicago has just sent me this list of some of the reliable groups accepting money donations to provide relief to the earthquake victims:

Help Haiti Now

Red Cross

UNICEF

Oxfam America

Catholic Relief Services

Mercy Corps

Doctors Without Borders

Our neighbor Haiti

As I write this- at 12:05 on Wed. morning Tucson time--nobody knows how many have died in the huge 7.0 earthquake.that hit Port au Prince at 5:30 p.m. The epicenter of this shallow quake was only a few miles west of Haiti's capital city.

Reports say that thousands sit in the streets in the rain and darkness. The BBC says at least hundreds have died, another source says maybe thousands.

How much can one poor and devastated country withstand? Especially when it is the poorest in the western hemisphere and one of the poorest in the world.

54% of the Haiti's 8.2 million people are impoverished and live on less than a dollar a day. 76% live on less than two dollars a day.

While earthquake relief is already on its way from the US, it is staggering to realize that Haiti lies only 681 miles south of our country--a country where Wall St. employees rescued by taxpayers are receiving billions of dollars in annual bonuses. On Monday, Democracy Now reported: "Wall Street firms are preparing to give out billions of dollars in annual bonuses. The average employee at Goldman Sachs is expected to receive a bonus worth nearly $600,000. Many executives will earn far more. At JPMorgan the average bonus is expected to top $450,000. But the Wall Street Journal reports many employees at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and other firms are grumbling because much of this year’s bonus will be in stock instead of cash."

Something is colossally rotten, and it's not in Denmark.

10 minutes spotlighting Arpaio

Just minutes ago I received email with a link to a 10-minute video from KPHO TV in Phoenix about Maricopa County's racial-profiling sheriff Joe Arpaio. I won't repeat here what I wrote about Arpaio (whom I believe to be a fascist) in my December 13 blog, but I highly recommend this video to everyone. (And I hope that the vast number of clueless folks in Maricopa County who consider Arpaio their hero watch it with their blinders off.)

I find that putting a clickable link into Blogger is very complicated (if it works at all), so you'll have to copy and paste this KPHO link into your browser:

http://www.kpho.com/video/21476686/index.html

By the way the "Mary Poppins" ad at the beginning lasts just a few seconds.

Go, FBI! It has taken way too long. Joe Arpaio has to be indicted ASAP.